Chapter V: XXXIII
Monday updated update: Here’s the shaded version.
Monday ETA: Updated but still a work in progress. I’ll finish the shading later today.
I still can’t shake whatever bug this is I’ve caught. It just lingers and lingers. Ugh. Have a draft comic, see the fascinating backstage process, etc. etc.
Here are the previous “in progress” versions:
A very long, sharp knife. You may be a Caesar, but you’re mortal.
Memento mori.
Perfect!
Mortal, but at least he gets to become a god when he dies.
It’s the first century AD and everybody has a knife… that’s ’cause we’re civilized people studying to become Italians!
Poor Felix: He’ll never know the joy of a Beretta 92R.
They’re practicing for the age of dukes and Borgias when Italy really gets fun.
“Is that a knife under your toga, or are you just glad to see me?”
Sorry. Couldn’t help it.
I set ’em up, I can’t complain if someone knocks ’em down!
Not just a knife, but a really LONG knife. The dibble-stick next to it ain’t bad either.
I had to look up “dibble-stick.” I had not ever heard that word. That’s a completely crazy word. I suppose in spring one’s fancy turns to dibbling.
Dibble stick: used for poking holes in the ground to receive seed… wheat no doubt, or maybe barley. “Diddle’ is actually a related word.
Oh my. The etymology just gets worse 🙂
(Moved this to the comment where it belongs!)
I was wondering where he got the sword, but a long knife makes sense.
Perhaps now he can get to draw proper weapons from the imperial armory.
Felix kept his pointy accessories in his trunk-of-stuff that he hauled around Herculaneum, but he had to whittle it down to the basics when making a swim for it.
Sensible of him to be careful about who feels up his sword, as it were. Apparently Roman law was arguable about private possession of weapons, but at least until Imperial times it was not just illegal but a sacrilege to go armed within the pomerium, the City walls. Even the public lictors – except a Dictator’s – haf to remove the axes from the fasces.
Of course, the Julian revolution and the arrival of the Imperium changed that. But my guess would be that less than a century after Augustus a private citizen would, at the very least, get hassled by the local vigiles for going openly armed.
Outside the walls, of course, was a different story. But when in Rome…best rely on a soft word…and a long knife
Indeed!
It’s not the done thing to be walking around the city of Rome armed. On the other hand, it’s probably wise to be armed while walking around the city of Rome. It’s a conundrum.
My reading of the accounts of the day suggests that how likely you were to get in trouble for “open carry” depended on who you were. Writers of the day complained about certain factions swaggering about armed, suggesting that THEIR faction didn’t get the same privilege.
I suspect that, just like today, there was a lot of situational ethics to it as well. Being strapped in the Forum? Probably not cool. But in some of the shadier insulae? Probably a pretty good idea, if you were there looking for trouble…
I think you’re absolutely right!
A gladius iberius isn’t all that heavy… probably not over a pound and a half, maybe two. We know he’s a mighty swimmer. A large knife would weigh a bit less.
Beef up your immune system! Rome requires it. http://www.motherearthnews.com/natural-health/nutrition/strengthen-your-immune-system-zmaz10aszraw.aspx#axzz2LrdVjwbA
I follow maybe two or three of those twelve guidelines… 😛
I’m feeling mostly better…but now I have laryngitis 🙂
“Caught us unprepared”? I’m missing something here… unless he’s talking about the volcano?
I meant the volcano.
Rather, he meant the volcano.
I could tweak that. “unprepared in Campania” or something.